


LC 2731 
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IDEAS ON EDUCATION 
EXPRESSED BY SAMUEL 
CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 



"I 



IDEAS ON EDUCATION 
EXPRESSED BY SAMUEL 
CHAPMAN ARMSTRONG 



" I am waiting for the day when the whole country will 
come to the true idea of settling the political and race 
questions I believe we have it here and it will some day 
conquer." 



► 



Issued for the Armstrong league of hampton 
workers by the hampton institute press, 1908. 



l&* 






CONTENTS 

Education for Life 3 

Ideals for Hampton Workers 8 

Religious Training 12 

Academic Training 15 

Labor as an Educational Force . . . , . 18 

Industrial Training 19 

Agricultural Training 25 

Business Training 27 

The Training of Girls , 29 

Co-education 30 

The Value of Discipline • 31 

Standards of Admission to Hampton 33 

Ideals for Graduates 34 



- *h 






Education for Life 

o— 

o 

The only hope for the future of the South is in a 
vigorous effort to elevate the colored race by practical 
education that shall fit them for life." 

I think we may reasonably hope to build up here 
on historic ground, an institution that will aid f reedmen 
to escape from the difficulties that surround them by 
affording the best possible agency for their improve- 
ment in mind and heart, by sending out, not peda- 
gogues, but those whose culture shall be upon the whole 
circle of living and who with clear insight and strong 
purpose will do a quiet work that shall make the land 
purer and better. 

An imitation of Northern models will not do. 
Right methods of work at the South must be created, 
not copied, though the underlying principle is every- 
where the same. There must be an essential and inevi- 
table difference between Hampton and schools of a simi- 
lar nature at the North or in Europe. While this institu- 
tion is distinctly agricultural, a majority of its gradu- 
ates become teachers, and as such might be held to 
need no special agricultural or mechanical training. 
In an older civilization this would undoubtedly be true, 
but with us, the teachers sent out come directly in con- 
tact with the farmers of the country and can make 
their practical and scientific knowledge tell at once up- 
on the agricultural interest by putting into the hands 
of their pupils the experience which they themselves 
have gained daring their three years' course at Hamp- 
ton. They can impart during six months of the year 



4 Ideas on Education 

knowledge which will be immediately utilized during the 
suceeding six months, and as a matter of fact are often 
during vacations, etc., obliged to support themselves by 
the labor of their hands, a state of things which they 
can be prepared to meet only by such thoroughly poly- 
technic training as Hampton gives. 

The Negroes, who are to form the working 
classes of the South, must be taught not only to do 
their work well, but to know what their work means, 
and while at Hampton the discipline of hard work keeps 
away the indolent, it attracts the determined and de- 
serving, endows the graduates with a spirit of self-re- 
liance and of manliness, and returnsthem to the world 
at the end of the course something more than mere 
pedagogues and farmers — civilizers, able not only to en- 
courage the young idea, but to work to advantage the 
exhausted lands about them, and by example and pre- 
cept to teach right ideas of life and duty. Such men 
are needed by the State, but above all are they need- 
ed by the colored race, whose greatest danger is in the 
bad leadership of demagogues, whose destiny is not yet 
assured, and whose future honorable position is to be 
secured only by toil. To this end also the training of 
the women is a valuable adjunct ; their work in the in- 
dustrial school which is connected with the Institute, 
and their manual labor in the Institute itself, fitting 
them to meet the demands which are likely to be made 
upon them in after life, either as teachers of young 
children or as wives and mothers. 



Education for Life 5 

There are two objective points before us, toward 
one or the other of which all our energies must soon 
be directed as the final work of this Institute. One is 
the training of the intellect, storing it with the largest 
amount of knowledge, producing the highest example 
of culture ; the other is the more difficult one of at- 
tempting to educate in the broadest sense of the word, 
to draw out a complete manhood. The former is a 
laborious but simple work ; the latter is full of difficulty. 
It is not easy to surround the student with a perfectly 
balanced system of influences. The value of every 
good appliance is limited and ceases when not per- 
fectly adjusted to the higher end. The needle, the 
broom, and the wash-tub, the awl, the plane, and the 
plow become the allies of the globe, the blackboard, 
and the text-book. 

Didactic and dogmatic work has little to do with 
the formation of character which is our point. That is 
done by making the school a little world in itself; 
mingling hard days' work in field or shop with social 
pleasures, making success depend on behavior rather 
than on study marks. School life should be like real 
life. 

Our work has been to civilize; instruction in books 
is not all of it. General deportment, habits of living 
and of labor, right ideas of life and duty are taught in 
order that graduates may be qualified to teach others 
these important lessons of life. 



6 Ideas on Education 

The past of our colored population has been such 
that an institution devoted especially to them must 
provide a training more than usually comprehensive, 
must include both sexes and a variety of occupation, 
must produce moral as well as mental strength, and 
while making its students first-rate mechanical laborers 
must also make them first-rate men and women. 

From the lack of right home influences and of a 
pure social atmosphere the Negro child suffers far more 
than from unequal school privileges. 

The average Negro student needs a regime which 
shall control the twenty-four hours of each day — only 
thus can the old ideas and ways be pushed out and new 
ones take their place. The formation of good habits is 
fundamental in our work. In a Northern school they 
may, perhaps, be presupposed , with us they are an 
objective point ; one that, however, is easily reached, 
for the Negro pupil, like the Negro soldier, is readily 
transformed under wise control into remarkable tidi- 
ness and good conduct generally. 

Organized industries, giving the students a chance 
to meet bills for board and clothing by labor, high 
standards of discipline, carefully weeding out the un- 
worthy but excluding all corporal or other humiliating 
punishment whatever, a perfectly fair and firm admin- 
istration, and the highest order of skill in teaching : 
these make a combination of influences that will be ef- 
fective, if anything can be, to the production of skillful, 
persevering teachers, of wise leaders, of peacemakers, 
rather than noisy and dangerous demagogues. 



Education for Life 7 

A portion of the students could enter upon a 
college course if the means were provided for five or 
six years continued study, but that is not germane to 
the plan of this institution as normal and agricultural, 
and as meeting the wants and financial capacity of the 
great majority of the people, to whose condition it is 
adjusted rather than to that of the fortunate few who 
have the means of pursuing an extended course of 
study, and who had better by all means avail themselves 
of the immense endowment for college culture pro- 
vided in various parts of the country, to which they 
have full access and whither some of our graduates 
have gone and are going. 

The education needed for the elevation of the 
colored race is one that touches upon the whole range 
of life, that aims at a foundation of good habits and 
sound principles, that considers the details of each 
day ; that enjoins, in respect to diet, regularity, proper 
selection, and good cooking; in respect to habits, suita- 
able clothing, exercise, cleanliness of persons and 
quarters, and ventilation, also industry and thrift ; and, 
in respect to all things, intelligent practice and self- 
restraint. 

The educated man usually overestimates himself 
because his intellect has grown faster than his experi- 
ence of life. 



Ideals for Hampton Workers 

The true value in teaching is the personal ele- 
ment — the teacher. 

In the school the great thing is not to quarrel ; 
to pull all together; to refrain from hasty, unwise words 
and actions ; to unselfishly and wisely seek the best 
good of all ; and to get rid of workers whose tempera- 
ments are unfortunate — whose heads are not level — no 
matter how much knowledge or culture they may have. 
Cantankerousness is worse than heterodoxy. 

This race needs the best of instructors. Our 
pupils are docile, impressible, imitative, and earnest, 
and come to us as tabula rasa so far as real culture is 
concerned. Teachers are useful- as much by what 
they are as by what they say ; they have great vantage 
ground for work from the implicit faith reposed in 
them, and their tone and character tell upon their 
pupils. The atmosphere of a school life like this should 
be a powerful tonic for its pupils. 

There never was a time when the colored race 
needed friends more than now. General sympathy 
is exhausted. The tide of enthusiasm which sustained 
their schools for the first ten years is fast ebbing. A 
race cannot be Christianized in a decade or by anything 
but systematic, permanent educational forces, one of 
which this institution aims to become. 

Education is a means to an end. The end should 
determine the means. The neglect of this is the 
rock on which thousands are wrecked. 



Ideals for Hampton Workers g 

The attempt to cast all minds in one mould is 
useless. 

Some students acquire with difficulty but this 
class is likely to furnish many useful teachers who 
may have the best elements of success even if they 
are not brilliant scholars. 

Many a youth has the disadvantage of his ad- 
vantages in that he does not earn his education by a 
struggle, which in itself creates the finest thing in 
manhood. 

Is it not true that it is not daily victory we should 
expect, but daily struggle ? The best man is he who 
makes the best fight. 

Character does not develop as rapidly as mind. 
School work is (commonly) directed to mind — indi- 
rectly to morals, and if the latter are benefited it is 
from the personal quality and influence of the teacher 
rather than from systematic training. 

Over-education and lack of personal training are 
dangers with the weak races. The proper limit of 
teaching is difficult to settle but is much ignored in 
the philanthropic work of the day; hence waste of 
work, and disappointment. For the average pupil, too 
much is as bad as too little. 

I have for many years been preaching that 
knowledge is not power. Undigested knowledge pro- 
duces a malady sometimes called the " big-head." 



10 Ideas on Education 

The power to learn is universal. Savages have good 
memories. The lack of power to use their learning 
is their weakness. 

Responsibility is the best developing force, and 
development is the end of all education. 

The power to think clearly and straight comes 
from proper training. It is most successful when that 
training is obtained through self-help, which underlies 
the best work of all men. 

The great need of the Negro is logic, and the sub- 
jection of feeling to reason, yet in supplying his 
studies we must exercise his curiosity, his love of the 
marvelous, and his imagination, as a means of sustain- 
ing his enthusiasm. 

The end of mental training is a discipline and 
power not derived so much from knowledge as from 
the method and spirit of the student. 

Drill that develops thought and moral force is the 
thing in school life. 

We have not thought best to follow too closely 
existing models which have been successful under 
totally different circumstances. 

Habits cannot be reversed at once like a steam 
engine* It takes time, and in time it can be done. 



Ideals for Hampton Workers II 

Education is a slowly working leaven in an im- 
mense mass, whose pervasive, directive force cannot 
be felt generally for many years. We ought to see, 
and hope to see, the foundation of a Negro civilization 
well laid. It is well for the workers in this cause to 
remember that they are commencing, not finishing. 



Religious Training 

I regard the idea of a mission, in the mind of an 
Indian, Negro, or any youth, as a directive and helpful 
force of the greatest value in the formation of charac- 
ter. 

Of all our work, that upon the heart is the most 
important ; there can be no question as to the para- 
mount necessity of teaching the vital precepts of the 
Christian faith, and of striving to awaken a genuine 
enthusiasm for the higher life that shall be sustained, 
and shall be the strong support of the young workers 
who may go out to be examples to their race. 

The fundamental non-sectarian, but earnestly 
Christain idea of the Hampton School, is to make free- 
dom and citizenship mean more than they have 
meant to the black and red population of our country. 

The spiritual guides of a people, whose ability to 
endure the strain of civilization is doubtful, should 
constantly strive to avert impending evils by a system 
of physical doctrine as earnestly enforced as those of 
the higher life on which the bodily life is conditional. 
Both are part of a Christian manhood. 

The preacher of a race like the Negro, especially 
in country regions, should for a long time to come be 
a farmer or teacher, who doesn't depend on his church 
revenue. Only in this way can men who teach by 
example reach the race and be independent enough to 
assail their prejudices. The paid preacher seldom 
does this anywhere. 



Religious Training IJ 

I don't believe in the technical training given by 
most theological professors. It may make preachers, 
but it doesn't make men. 

Sociology is the great practical science of the day 
and leads all others. The Kingdom of Heaven will 
come through sociology well studied and applied wise- 
ly, in a level-headed way. 

This institution depends in a large part on the 
public ; upon no charitable society, for it is working its 
own way ; upon no sect, for it is undenominational. 
Yet it is decidedly Christian in teaching and expects 
its graduates will become as useful evangelists as edu- 
cators. The value of their labor in Sunday schools 
cannot be overestimated. 

By and by it will be part of a liberal education to 
devote a year or more to personal labor for the unfor- 
tunate. 

For manhood there is nothing better than the 
study of a man, save the practice of the manly virtues. 

A work that requires no sacrifice does not count 
for much in fulfilling God's plans. But what is com- 
monly called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one's 
self and one's resources — the best investment of time, 
strength, and means. He who makes no such sacrifice 
is most to be pitied. He is a heathen, because he 
knows nothing of God. 



14 Ideas on Education 

Prayer is the greatest thing in the world. It keeps 
us near to God — my own prayer has been most weak, 
wavering, inconstant ; yet it has been the best thing I 
have ever done. I think this is universal truth — what 
comfort is there in any but the broadest truth ? 

It pays to follow one's best light — to put God and 
country first ; ourselves afterwards. 



Academic Training 

The plan of combining mental and physical labor 
is a priori full of objections. It is admitted that it in- 
volves friction, constant embarrassment, and apparent 
disadvantage to educational advancement as well as to 
the profits of the various industries. But to the ques- 
tion, "Do your students have sufficient time to study 
their lessons faithfully ?" I should answer, "Not 
enough, judging by the common use of time, but under 
pressure they make better use of the hours they have; 
there is an additional energy put forth, an increased 
rate of study which makes up for the time spent in 
manual labor, while the physical vigor gained affords 
abundant strength for severe mental labor." Nothing 
is of more benefit to the students than this compul- 
sory waking up of the faculties. 

The course of study does not run smoothly ; there 
is action and reaction, depression and delight ; but 
the reserve forces of character no longer lie dormant. 
They make the rough places smooth ; the school be- 
comes a drill ground for future work. It sends men 
and women rather than scholars into the world. 

An English course embracing reading and elocu- 
tion, geography, mathematics, history, the science of 
civil government, the natural sciences, the study of 
the mother tongue and its literature, the leading prin- 
ciples of mental and moral science, and political 
economy, would, I think, make up a curriculum that 
would exhaust the best powers of nineteen-twentieths 
of those who would for years to come enter the In- 
stitute. Should, however, any pupil have a rare ap- 
titude for the classics and desire to become a man of 



16 Ideas on Education 

letters in the largest sense, it would be our duty to 
provide special instruction for him or send him where 
he could receive it. 

The teacher of book English has a heavy task, 
and facility in reading is acquired only by years of 
practice. 

Good wholesome reading is an excellent thing for 
the formation of character. 

With the freed people music is the only adequate 
interpreter of the past and offers for their future a 
lifting, inspiring force not half appreciated. 

I think too much stress is laid on the importance 
of choosing one of the great lines of study — the class- 
ics or the natural sciences — and too little upon the 
vital matter of insight into the life and spirit of that 
which is studied. Vital knowledge cannot be got from 
books ; it comes from insight, and we attain it by 
earnest study and thought under wise direction. 

The time assigned to labor reduces that usually 
devoted to study one-fourth, yet progress is retarded 
much less, it at all. The rate of study is increased, 
both by bodily vigor, and by the desire to make the 
most of hard-earned chances, so that the curriculum 
is as extensive as it would be without labor, but the 
highest advantages accrue from it as a means of 
strengthening character. 



Academic Training iy 

Determinatoin, courage, endurance, faith — these 
are some of the things which flourish in the hard condi- 
tions of our night school, and experience has taught 
us that it is only through contact with the real things 
of life that these virtues can be made permanent and 
characteristic. 

Labor and study can be satisfactorily combined. 

The Hampton Institute in its efforts to provide 
the best possible teachers for the colored race has 
sometimes been taken to task for not giving its stu- 
dents a higher range of study. To transform most 
illiterate and imperfect beings into earnest, practical 
and intelligent human beings has been thought un- 
worthy of elaborate facilities. Greek and Latin in 
hot haste should have followed the spelling book. 
Law and theology should have entered minds where 
English grammar is not well seated. Undisciplined 
field hands or farm boys should have been driven into 
the lists to disprove race inferiority. Literati should 
have been produced as far above their humble relatives 
in knowledge as they would have been in tastes and 
aspirations and sympathies. 



Labor as an Educational Force 

Subtract hard work from life, and in a few 
months it will have all gone to pieces. Labor, next to 
the grace of God in the heart, is the greatest pro- 
moter of morality, the greatest power for civilization. 

Work is required of all throughout the course. 
Money cannot buy exemption. 

Labor is required of all for purposes of discipline 
and instruction. 

Another advantage watched here with the greatest 
interest from year to year is the moral stimulus of 
the work idea and habit, the earnestness it gives to 
character, the quickening and strengthening to in- 
tellect. 

The weekly work-day breaks in upon the study, 
but wakes up the mind. More actual progress can be 
accomplished with it than without it. 



Industrial Training 

The race will succeed or fail as it shall devote 
itself with energy to agriculture and mechanic arts, 
or avoid these pursuits, and its teachers must be in- 
spired with the spirit of hard work and acquainted 
with the ways that lead to material success. 

In the great Missionary Conference in London in 
1888, it was said that converts in Africa need industrial 
education for moral reasons : and converts in India to 
to keep them from starving. 

We believe that whenever a ' manual labor 
system' is attempted, it should be carefully adjusted to 
the demands of scientific and practical education. The 
question at once arises what this manual labor should 
be. There are two theories, of which the first is that 
its entire aim should be to give the means to students 
of supporting themselves, that a profitable farm on a 
very large scale should enable a large number of 
students to support themselves by agriculture, and 
that workshops on a large scale for the manufacture 
of some simple fabrics of universal consumption should 
enable a large number of students to support them- 
selves by mechanic arts ; that in both these cases the 
main theory should be self-supporting industry and 
not educational industry. The second theory is that 
the primary object of manual labor 'in both de- 
partments should be educational ; that is, that the work 
should be first of all done with a view to perfect the 
student in the best processes, and to make him scien- 



20 Ideas on Education 

tifically and practically a first-class agriculturist and 
mechanic. While the first of these theories may at 
times be desirable, the second is essential, and all 
schools which are destined to be permanently suc- 
cessful must be founded upon the fact that aid given 
to them by individuals is not to assist ten, twenty, or 
fifty young people to support themselves, but to enable 
hundreds of them to obtain a thorough, practical, and 
scientific education, in order to develop the industrial 
resources of the nation. Evidently such an edu- 
cation must be in the outset expensive, for no harvest 
can be reaped without a liberal sowing of seed, and 
while institutions which are self-supporting are good, 
the schools which give the best ultimate results and 
tell most favorably upon the national life, are those 
which, while managed with the utmost thrift and 
economy, have for their primary object education 
rather than production. 

Setting altogether aside what may be called its 
commercial value, we find it (industrial education) to 
be one of the strongest moral forces that we have at 
our disposal and are inclined to look upon it as the 
corner stone in the civilization of the two races with 
which we have to do. We do not hesitate to say that 
we have found its influence in the creation of charac- 
ter so marked that we should be loth to give it up as 
our best ally, under God, in the work which we have 
undertaken. 

The manual labor system was made fundamental 
here from the first for its own sake, with full conviction 
of its value in the symmetrical development of the 
individual or the race, and with readiness to sacrifice to 



Industrial Training 21 

this the necessary per cent of mere mental culture. Ex- 
perience for sixteen years confirms this conviction and 
is proving that industrial training leads, on the whole 
and in the long run, not against but in favor of mental 
progress. 

The training of the hand has been the neglected 
factor in our civilization. It is pushing its way into 
the common schools — opposed, but sure to spread. 

Capacity and respect for intelligent labor is here 
a fundamental idea, as well as supplying good teachers 
for the 25,000 co lored free schools of the South ; 
furnishing often well-trained teachers of mechanical 
trades and agriculture. 

By building up here a system that shall embrace 
a number of light manufactures and the most profita- 
ble kinds of agriculture, Hampton can supply teachers 
experienced in good agricultural and mechanical 
methods and trained to regard labor as honorable. 

What then is the superior advantage of ap- 
prenticeship over technical instruction ? First and 
chiefly it is that element of reality which gives force 
and meaning to life ; the interest in work, the habits 
of carefulness, accuracy, thoroughness, that come from 
this element ; the strength born of purpose and re- 
sponsibility, of being put in touch with business tests 
and business standards. 

Over nineteen-twentieths of the children in the 
Charlottesville colored schools — and I believe in the 



22 Ideas of Education 

colored schools in the South generally, leave their 
books for a life of manual labor, yet the universal course 
of instruction and study has no reference whatever to 
this essential fact. 

Helping a few well-chosen and well-drilled gradu- 
ates, at a yearly expense of $50 to $75, in such wide- 
awake towns as Charlottesville, Lynchburg, or Staun- 
ton, might so win the interest of local school officers as 
to secure public aid for technical work in the public 
free schools, just as the public school officers of Boston 
were converted to cooking and carpentry by Mrs. 
Hemen way's admirable illustration of them at her own 
expense. The technical teaching in the Starr King 
schoolhouse will by and by lead all New England. 

A boy or girl who does not expect to be a me- 
chanic is all the better for knowing how to handle 
common tools — to mend a school bench, make a black- 
board or set of shelves. But we feel that the student, 
Negro or Indian, who can take a regular apprentice- 
ship, or a partial one even, gets most out of the school ; 
and most of its bone and sinew comes up through the 
shops, with from one to two years in the night school, 
ending with the day classes working two days in the 
week. 

Real life makes real men. 

At present the Negro's resources as a laborer are 
of the most limited description. The first steps to- 



Industrial Training 23 

ward any radical improvement in his condition must 
be taken in the direction of increasing his skill as a 
workman. 

The great difficutly and delicacy of Hampton's 
industrial problem of carrying on business and educa- 
tion at the same time is realized by few, yet its results 
in intelligent, self-helpful, and valuable citizens of 
both races (Negro and Indian) seems to more than 
justify the labor and expense of it all. 

Throughout the South the demand for skilled labor 
in all departments is imperative, and with proper train- 
ing that demand can be supplied from the ranks of the 
colored people ; for in devotion to study our pupils at 
Hampton are enthusiastic, they are docile and plastic, 
and their mechanical faculties work quickly, while 
they are capable of acquiring knowledge to any degree. 
What the Negro needs at once is elementary and in- 
dustrial education and moral development. 

The industrial system enables Hampton to give to 
its students a full hour more of study per day outside 
of school hours than institutions without an organized 
labor system can, simply because it takes a work bell 
to turn people out early enough to secure the fresh 
morning study hour which the Hampton student 
thinks the best of the day. 

One of the most interesting problems unfolding 
at Hampton is the varied bearing of industrial training 
upon education in general . 



24 Ideas of Education 

The moral advantages of industrial training over 
all other methods justify the expense. 

To destroy the industrial system would be to re- 
duce the expenses of the institution, but would change 
its character, destroy its best results, and place it be- 
yond the reach of the most needy and deserving 
students. 



Agricultural Training 

The temporal salvation of the colored race for 
some time to come is to be won out of the ground. 
Skillful agriculturists and mechanics are needed 
rather then poets and orators. That nothing here 
may encourage any student in contempt for work, 
those even who can and do pay their way are required 
to labor. 

Teaching and farming go well together in the pres- 
ent condition of things (in the South). The teacher- 
farmer is the man for the times ; he is essentially an 
educator thoughout the year. The agricultural train- 
ing at Hampton is a valuable basis for the teachers 
whom it has fitted and is fitting for the field. 

The discipline of the farmer is as strict as that of 
the teacher. The man who leads in the debating club 
may be the last and the laziest in the field ; one who is 
dull in mathematics may be at the head of the work- 
ing squad. Thus we are guarded against the one-sided 
estimate of ordinary schools. With us position is 
achieved in the field as well as in the recitation room. 
Labor is honored and a just pride is felt by those who 
succeed in working out their expenses. 

To put into every state an agricultural school and 
experiment station open to the colored race and adapt- 
ed to their especial needs ; in direct communication 
with their leading farmers ; spreading through circu- 
lars and bulletins practical information and furnishing 
stimulus to thousands who now never see anything of 
the sort — this is a work which should be provided for 
in any broad, national plan for educational improve- 
ment in the South. 



26 Ideas of Education 

The farm must stand the loss, for its work is to 
educate rather than to make money. The question is 
not," Does the farm support itself ? " but " What does 
it do for the students ? " The people of the country 
do not yet understand the need of supporting professors 
who shall impart practical knowledge and teach habits 
of labor and self-reliance, as they do the need of endow- 
ing Greek professorships. 

Slavery was a greater curse to the soil than to 
man. The soil needs redemption as much as the souls 
there (in the South). Grass for the one ; ideas for the 
other. 



Business Training 

At Hampton our whole work is based upon the 
theory of self-help, and we force it upon our students 
at the point of the bayonet, so to speak ; but no theory 
can cover all cases, and not infrequently our best 
results have been obtained by making bold and flagrant 
exceptions to our rule. 

Students have not been pauperized. The idea of 
self-help has been adhered to. Value for value is 
made fundamental, and the formation of character 
rather than of polished scholarship is regarded. 

Pupils are expected to pay board, washing, and 
fuel bills amounting to ten dollars a month, and there 
is some additional expense for books and clothing. A 
few have worked out their entire expenses, but or- 
dinarily students cannot, with justice to their studies, 
earn more than five dollars a month, the younger ones 
not so much. Many having neither relations able to 
help them, nor previous savings, are in debt at the end of 
the year from twenty-five to seventy-five dollars. It is 
better, in most cases, to wait for payment than to 
cancel the bill by the aid of charity. They need to be 
taught that a charge in the ledger account is a real 
thing, and that the lapse of time does not release from 
obligation. Their consciences are apt to be weak in 
this matter, and payment often depends upon pressure 
rather than upon an eagerness to be free from debt. 

Paying unskilled boys is good for them but not 
for the balance sheet. 



28 Ideas on Education 

These people are constantly victimized through their 
ignorance of business methods, and are usually care- 
less and inefficient in such matters. Every student 
ought to know how to make out a bill, a promissory 
note, give a proper receipt, and be familiar with the 
ways of buying and selling land. 

A business education is conducive to honesty and 
promotes thrift and success. 



The Training of Girls 

The condition of woman is the gauge of civiliza- 
tion. Make the most of your girls. 

Work for the women of all races, whether de- 
graded or civilized, is of equal importance with that 
or the men. 

The homes of the people are the central, vital 
facts everywhere. Then train the young broadly, 
thoughtfully, and care for your girls as you have never 
done before. 

If the condition of women is the true gauge of 
civilization, how would we be working, except indirect- 
ly, for a real elevation of society by training young 
men alone. In every respect the opportunities of the 
sexes should be equal, and two years of experience 
here have shown that young men and women of color 
may be educated together to the greatest mutual ad- 
vantage and without detriment to a high moral stand- 
ard. 



Co-education 

The family is the unit of civilization, and the con- 
ditions of pure family living are the first things to be 
created in educating men and women. Hence the co- 
education of the sexes is indispensable, and in the 
leading colored schools of the South is an unquestion- 
able success. We claim as much for well-managed 
Indian boarding schools. 

Mingle the sexes : satisfy human nature in a 
reasonable way : fit them for life by letting them 
live as they will have to live : and they will have more 
character. 

The sexes should have equal advantages of educa- 
tion. On them equally depends the future of their 
people. 

From a twelve years' experience in co-education 
of the sexes at Hampton Institute, we incline to in- 
creased faith in the stability of character which edu- 
cation gives to young colored women of all shades. 

The work of fitting colored girls for family life 
and Christian work is full of encouragement. 

The co-education of the sexes is a complete success. 



The Value of Discipline 

The higher Southern schools for Negroes can 
and should have better discipline and more earnest 
students than any college in the North; and this will 
be obtained only by carefully studying the peculiari- 
ties of the position. 

To implant right motive power and good habits 
aided by the student's own perceptions, to make him 
train himself, is the end of discipline. Yet there is 
need of much external force, mental and moral, es- 
pecially upon the plastic natures with which we deal. 
There must be study of character, advice, sympathy, 
and, above all, a judicious letting alone. 

Our most perplexing cases have been those of 
honest, well-meaning students, either of limited 
ability and fine character, or of low propensities and 
childishness or coarseness of character. One of the 
latter class may be zealous and there may be power 
in him that will be used in a good or bad cause; yet 
his evil traits will be quickly caught by the pliant and 
younger ones around him. He may finally become a 
strong and worthy man, but meanwhile great mischief 
is wrought; the tone of the school is lowered, and many 
have learned wickedness of which they can scarcely 
be cured. 

Our military drill has been found of decided as- 
sistance, not only because of its effect in making cer- 
tain minor virtues habitual, but also because it makes 
possible a training in self-discipline through our stu- 
dents' court martial, officered by themselves, which 



J2 Ideas on Education 

could not easily be secured in any other way ; which 
does much to promote healthy organization and that 
espirit de corps in which the Negro is markedly lacking. 

Manifestly, too, it gives a certain sparkle to the 
dull round of daily duty which is not without its influ- 
ence upon both teachers and pupils. The music of 
a band and the shining of an occasional epaulette do 
a great deal toward enlivening long days in the car- 
penter shop or the laundry, as everywhere else. "A 
merry heart goes half the way." 

Any student may be dropped from school who 
shall be considered unworthy of the scholarship aid 
which he may need to secure his education. 



Standards of Admission to Hampton Institute 

Sound health, testimonals of good character, and 
intention to remain through the course and to become 
teachers, are required of all applicants. 

This institution will advance its standards as rap- 
idly as preparatory schools shall furnish better material; 
the graduate of last year has more book knowledge 
and a far better general culture than had the graduate 
six years ago. But whatever the advance has been and 
however encouraging the prospect, we doubt whether 
the next fifty years will make the average colored 
school a congenial field intellectually. The work has 
never been one for carpet knights to engage in. The 
weakness and poverty of the people and their moral 
weakness make conditions of life for the teacher in 
many ways rugged and uninviting. 

There is such a thing as too many students, es- 
pecially when the work is upon character and morals. 



Ideals for Graduates 

The normal school graduate of the South should 
be of the people — above them, yet of them — in order 
to make natural or probable a lifelong service in 
their behalf. 

The following qualifications, among others, we 
expect from the graduates of our school : 

Ability to teach the rudiments of knowledge in 
the best manner. 

Capacity to govern youth and inspire them with a 
love for their studies. 

Character and behavior fitted to influence the 
communities in which they live, and to destroy preju- 
dice. 

An intelligent purpose to advocate temperance, 
thrift, and education. 

Power to distinguish between the true and false 
lights that surround and confuse the minds of the 
people. 

Willingness to labor in Sunday schools and in the 
spread of Christian morality and Bible truths. 

Our institution aims to make every pupil feel that 
the highest guild of all is that which he enters the 
day he graduates — a clanship which is pure and noble 
in its aims and whose members will criticise him 
through life and encourage him to stand for principles 
rather than for personal advancement. 

The fostering in our graduates of their sympa- 
thy for their less favored kindred, is the wisest policy 
we can adopt. 



Ideals for Graduates J5 

It is not simply a school that we are establishing. 
I would not appeal to people for the large sums we 
need were it simply to educate so many pupils ; but 
we mean to bring up a class of men and women whose 
business shall be the education of the Negro. If we 
can send out fifty men who must have schools, there 
will be fifty schools ; we shall send out fifty people 
whose business it is to keep the Negroes determined 
on education. 

It is important that the teachers of colored 
common schools be fitted and enjoined to give to their 
pupils instruction in the details and duties of daily 
living. Much can be done to popularize right hygienic 
ideas and sound ideas generally, but only by the 
greatest patience and perseverance. 

Our Southern schools are not for brain alone but 
for the whole man. The teachers should be not mere 
pedagogues but citizens. 

The personal force of the teacher is the main thing. 
Outfit and apparatus, about which so much fuss is 
made, are secondary. Our Hampton graduates are 
fitted for just this kind of work. 

Never mind how plain the log schoolhouse, if it 
is in charge of a well-trained graduate of Hampton or 
other institution, taught to live by self-help and earnest 
to do good work. 

Not so much the book knowledge taught as the 
ideas of conduct and cleanliness given, are carried by 
the children into their cabin homes, which in time are 



j6 Ideas on Education 

wonderfully changed. Cleanliness and order radiate 
from the schoolhouse. This is as true of schools for 
Indians as of those for Negroes. Few realize the re- 
markable influence of child on parent, because with 
prosperous people the influence is the other way. 

Edward Everett Hale once said to the students 
at Hampton : " Such songs as you have sung to-day 
constitute the only American music. Cherish them 
and be proud of them." 

I regard it as Hampton's special mission to infuse 
if possible into the public schools for both races in the 
South, working directly through the teacher, ideas of 
skill in labor and the use of tools. 

It the aim of this institution to send out educators 
of high moral purpose, who will stand for principle 
rather than for personal advancement, and oppose the 
rising tide of corruption created by bad social and 
political combinations, the radical idea of which is to 
get along by something else than hard work. 

Colored youth make successful and acceptable 
teachers. 

The respectable, high-minded graduate of a Negro 
school has to pass an ordeal inconceivable to those who 
live in an atmosphere of refinement, where there is 
an external support of decency like that of the air, the 
pressure of which is fifteen pounds to the square inch. 
Subtract this from your life and you will understand 
the situation of the Negro. 



Ideals for Graduates J 1 / 

Southern sentiment is comparatively cordial to 
colored teachers for colored schools. 

The care of graduates after they leave an in- 
stitution at the North is comparatively unnecessary. 
Public opinion and keen criticism follow. But in the 
South our colored graduates wield far more power with 
far less feeling of responsibility. Every means must 
be taken to cultivate their love for their alma mater, to 
perpetuate their relations with her, and to strengthen 
their good purposes by the feeling that their friends 
are watching over them. 

The steady gain in moral strength shown by our 
graduates in the past six years is marvelous and en- 
couraging. The crucial test o f this institution is the 
record of its graduates. 






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